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Fantastic Seafood at Wild Tale (Vancouver, B.C.)

Wild Tale is a fairly new seafood restaurant founded by co-owners John Crook and Erik Heck. In recent years, they’ve made a name with their crowd-pleasing Flying Pig restaurants. The whole concept of this place is California-fresh, easily affordable, simple seafood restaurant.

The dining room is spacious with some wood trim to make it feel rustic and squeezed in a few more tables on the bare-bones patio. The color scheme is beige, cream and hunter green. Sort of feels like a fishing lodge.

There is nothing revelatory about the menu – and that’s a good thing. It’s comfort seafood, done well for the most part. The vast majority of the seafood is Ocean Wise-friendly. Fortunately for the locals, the daily catch isn’t limited to the Pacific Northwest.

We started off our dinner with shucked, raw oysters that are a mix of Pacific Northwest oysters like the Kusshi (and another species I forgot), and both species of oysters were incredibly divine. Both were ranging from sweet to mildly briny and all were incredibly creamy.

The grilled Fanny Bay jumbo oysters with Cajun butter sauce was a great cooked oyster dish. Mildly spicy butter sauce mingled with the meaty, creamy oyster flesh, it was delectable.

The Hawaiian Ahi poke that’s neatly stacked with avocado cubes, mango salsa with slivers of jalapeno pepper. Separately, the elements are good but it makes more sense in the mouth when eaten altogether.

My dining companion craved pasta so the pan seared Haida Gwaii sablefish with Dungeness crab crust, spicy penne alla ‘puttanesca’, and basil beurre blanc looked pretty with the various colors. The flavors are simple and straightforward – sweet fish and crab meat; the penne was nicely briny and the basil beurre blanc added some refreshing herbaceousness to the dish. It was very good.

When it came to me and my other friend, we stuck with the “simply grilled fish” section. I had the local, firm-fleshed white sturgeon, supplemented with a half whole lobster and vegetable sides to balance my dinner. The simply prepared and cooked seafood shows its beautiful quality. The other dish was Ling cod with luxurious king crab legs. Like my seafood plate, this one was solidly good and it’s simplicity is much appreciated for such beautiful seafood.

We opted not to have dessert since we were incredibly full from the incredible seafood we had. Service was knowledgeable and very good despite it being packed and busy. The food was delicious and for sure the seafood was impeccable. You should go if you’re yearning for great seafood in a casual setting.

To view more photos of this visit, please view the photo set or the gallery below: